Ridiculous Fishing - A Tale of Redemption

Here’s something mobile gamers might want to check out: Polygon has posted a massively in-depth look at the making of Ridiculous Fishing. The game, which began life as a browser-based Flash title, was famously cloned on the App Store while developer Vlambeer was working to port the game over themselves.

Reporter Russ Pitts has turned two year’s worth of interviews with Vlambeer into a tale of ambition, struggle and success. Here’s a quote from the article:

Ridiculous Fishing was stolen. That’s what you and I would call it. In game development (particularly in the Wild West of mobile game development), they call it “cloning.” Basically, someone took the guts of the game, made it look different, then sold it as their own. This is a common practice. And it’s legal, in short, because it is not yet illegal.

Digital Spy has caught up with Vlambeer, the makers Ridiculous Fishing, to see what’s new. A lot is new, as it turns out. According to the article, Vlambeer is planning release a major update that will double the amount of content in the game later this year. In the meantime, they’ve already submitted an update that adds new fish and a knife to cut the line, which is expected to go live next month.

Vlambeer’s Rami Ismail insists, “The plan we have now, if we pull it off the way we want to, we’re going to double the content and add a completely new narrative arc, and explore that world a bit further.” We absolutely loved the game at release, so a whole new game’s worth of content is definitely something to look forward to. Best of all, it will be free.

For more details about Vlambeer’s plans for the year, read the full article.

Ridiculous Fishing might seem like just another iOS game, but it’s actually a whole lot more. Every aspect of the game, from the rewarding upgrade system to the unique graphics, displays an intricate craftsmanship we rarely see on the App Store. This game is something special.

In concept, the Ridiculous Fishing is as simple as they come. A fisherman casts his line, and you control the lure as it travels into the dark depths of the sea. Your job is go as deep as you can by tilting to avoid the myriad fish living down there. When the lure touches a fish, the fisherman starts to reel it in. Now your job is reversed, and you have to catch as many fish as possible as the lure rises to the surface.

Once the fisherman yanks the bundle of fish out of the water, they go flying into the air. Here the fisherman whips out a gun, and it’s up to you to tap or drag your finger across the screen to shoot as many flying fish as you can. The more fish you destroy, the more money you get. All of this is simple enough in concept, but it requires constant attention and quick reflexes in practice.

If that were all there was to the game, it would be a little fun time-waster. But what raises Ridiculous Fishing to a whole new level is its in-game store, where you can purchase upgrades to your line, lure, headwear, and arsenal of weapons. These are not one-time use power-ups like you’ll find in other iOS games. Nor are they items you can purchase using real-life money, either, so there’s no incentive for the developer to make them cost a fortune. The in-game store in Ridiculous Fishing is a thing of beauty.

Everything in the store affects your ability to send the lure deeper, catch more fish, or dispatch them easier. When you buy the chainsaw lure that lets you plow through fish as you drive the lure down into deeper water, your scores go up. When you equip the light that illuminates the dark depths of the sea, you reach go further depths. When you equip the shotgun, you’ll blast through a dozen flying fish with ease. And the better you become at the game, the quicker you earn money to keep upgrading your equipment.

Perhaps the best thing about the game is that all of the equipment is attainable. This isn’t one of those games you can keep playing until your brain turns to jelly. It’s a game that offers you a set of achievable goals, and lets you attain them. In other words, you can buy everything in the store, and beat the game.

But the store isn’t the only thing that’s perfectly executed here. As you play, you learn about the fish. You’ll quickly find that jellyfish are to be avoided because they cost you money. Some fish are harder to kill than others, and if they’re not valuable enough, you might avoid them until you unlock a more powerful gun. Each species of fish has its own properties, making them more or less valuable to you depending on your circumstances.

The same goes for the guns and lures you can equip. Some weapons fire single bullets and require you to tap the screen madly, while others are automatic and let you swipe around the screen. Using the chainsaw lure seems like a simple thing on the surface, but you have limited fuel, so you only want to use it when you’re about to touch a fish. It all adds up to hundreds of small decisions you have to make on the fly. It’s intense, man.

Ridiculous Fishing is so much more than just a simple iOS game. It’s meticulously designed to make every one of its many parts cohere. It’s easy to learn, hard to master, and it unfolds gradually, revealing more and more depth the further you progress. There’s something special about this game, and we can’t recommend it enough.

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We’d like to thank our sponsor for this week, The House of Da Vinci by Blue Brain Games. There’s a reason Leonardo Da Vinci is the only renaissance figure who routinely shows up in video games you know. With his remarkable inventiveness and genius for creative problem-solving, Da Vinci was a gamer through and through. He was just born 500 hundred years too soon. Thankfully, there are studios like Blue Brain Games to bring him to life in videogame form. The House of Da Vinci, which comes to us courtesy of a hugely successful Kickstarter campaign, is a puzzler that seeks to channel the artistry and innovation of its title character.

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